The PaperCut Portland Green team had a big year reaching Silver Certification status ! One of our goals this year was to check out and attend an event hosted by the Corporate Sustainability Collaborative . I finally made that happen last week!
This was their holiday mixer and year in review. About 50 people were in attendance from various businesses, agencies, and not-for-profits around the city. It was quite a diverse crowd! Food & drink were provided, and then we each introduced ourselves and shared our biggest sustainability accomplishments for the year.
Sharing sustainability initiatives
As I had never attended before, I cheated a bit and shared how we introduced composting to the entire Lincoln Place building (last year).
Some ideas that were shared by other businesses included launching a volunteer time off program – which PaperCut already does! They also suggested adding up the company-wide volunteering hours and sharing them. (Stay tuned for PaperCut sharing their impact report).
In Portland, we recently had a breakfast catered by Elephants Delicatessen and they were in attendance too! Did you know they can provide durable containers for any catering services? They will pick them up after as well. ED shared some of its energy savings strategies. They’re actually doing quite a lot.
A new Portland business Gobox was there! This is a great way to eliminate takeout food packaging waste. I’ve just started a subscription myself and will test it out for the office. If it’s successful, we’ll look into a corporate membership.
Another business talked about their commitment to diversity equity and inclusion. It’s a great reminder that sustainability practices can extend out to social responsibility.
CSC are always looking for companies to host their gatherings, and it would be amazing to do that in our new space.
A PaperCut customer story
When I first walked in, I was greeted by a volunteer for the Corporate Sustainability Collaborative, who works for NW Natural Gas. When I explained more about PaperCut, she said, “Wait, are you the people behind the swipe your badge at the copy machine? We just started using that at NW Natural and it’s amazing!”
One person stood up and introduced himself, and didn’t have any accomplishments to share, but shared that their goal was to reduce their paper usage. I suggested he check out PaperCut!
Planning ahead
April is Earth Month, and the CSC organizes all kinds of events over the course of the month. April 2020 is the 50th anniversary of the founding of Earth Month, so it’s a great opportunity for us to plan something significant!